1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to network communications and more specifically to a system and method for intelligently failing over network connections in a load-balanced networking environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Performance and reliability are key requirements for modern computer networks. When a network interface (“NIC”) on a computing device is no longer reliable, the networking performance of that NIC may drop substantially, possibly to zero. In such situations, contemporary solutions redirect network connections from the unreliable NIC to other, reliable NICs on the same computing device, a technique referred to as “failover.” Although failover may mitigate the immediate problem of the existence of an unreliable NIC, the additional network traffic on the remaining reliable NICs from the failed-over connections may cause one or more of the remaining reliable NICs to become overloaded, thereby reducing the performance of those interfaces. Additionally, the additional network traffic on the remaining reliable NICs may substantially increase the network processing performed by the computing device, thereby reducing the performance of the computing device.
As the foregoing illustrates, what is needed in the art is a technique for failing over network connections to one or more reliable NICs that reduces the likelihood of NIC overloading or other phenomena that can impair overall system performance.